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[The December Days theme this year is "Things I Used To Fully Believe About Myself." Some of these things might be familiar, some of them might be things you still believe about yourself, and some of them may be painful and traumatic for you based on your own beliefs and memories. The nice thing about text is that you can step away from it at any point and I won't know.]
#4: "It's always my fault."
This one is pretty straightforward to explain. The most consistent thing in my life when things go wrong is me. The thing that I can control in these situations is me. It's not that much of a stretch from there to assign responsibility and blame for what happened to myself. It provides an explanation and the seductive possibility of being able to avoid further misfortunes through increased self-control, increased knowledge, or achieving perfection in some manner. Unfortunately for pattern- and meaning-making beings, like humans are, the most difficult part of living in our universe is that most things in the universe and our own bodies and minds are sufficiently poorly understood as to be random.
( That doesn't stop us from trying, though, and trying to impose our patterns on others )
What's really helped this one become less potent is gaining frameworks that adequately explain what's happening without resorting to the belief that it's simply a moral failing that can be defeated with More Willpower. The falling asleep on the regular? How about sleep apnea interfering with a proper restorative rest? And then, finally, someone saying "yes, you seem like someone who has variable attention stimulus trait" and being able to recognize myself in the accounts of the people who do have it and being able to utilize corrective measures to help myself put my best foot forward, and apply appropriate concentration and task-switching. It's much easier to manage things when they stop being seen as failures of willpower and start being seen as things that need assistance. It's not going to be a panacea, of course, but it does allow for grace and forgiveness that previous frameworks did not. There's still more work to do, of course, because there's a lot of unlearning that needs doing, but I can say that, with time and experience and frameworks that work for me, it's not always my fault. Sometimes it really is random. And maybe, just maybe, some things really are someone else's fault.
#4: "It's always my fault."
This one is pretty straightforward to explain. The most consistent thing in my life when things go wrong is me. The thing that I can control in these situations is me. It's not that much of a stretch from there to assign responsibility and blame for what happened to myself. It provides an explanation and the seductive possibility of being able to avoid further misfortunes through increased self-control, increased knowledge, or achieving perfection in some manner. Unfortunately for pattern- and meaning-making beings, like humans are, the most difficult part of living in our universe is that most things in the universe and our own bodies and minds are sufficiently poorly understood as to be random.
( That doesn't stop us from trying, though, and trying to impose our patterns on others )
What's really helped this one become less potent is gaining frameworks that adequately explain what's happening without resorting to the belief that it's simply a moral failing that can be defeated with More Willpower. The falling asleep on the regular? How about sleep apnea interfering with a proper restorative rest? And then, finally, someone saying "yes, you seem like someone who has variable attention stimulus trait" and being able to recognize myself in the accounts of the people who do have it and being able to utilize corrective measures to help myself put my best foot forward, and apply appropriate concentration and task-switching. It's much easier to manage things when they stop being seen as failures of willpower and start being seen as things that need assistance. It's not going to be a panacea, of course, but it does allow for grace and forgiveness that previous frameworks did not. There's still more work to do, of course, because there's a lot of unlearning that needs doing, but I can say that, with time and experience and frameworks that work for me, it's not always my fault. Sometimes it really is random. And maybe, just maybe, some things really are someone else's fault.
